First of all, he was relating a quote from his father. Second of all, what his father meant to say was, some girls cry rape so easy. See, it's still reprehensible, but it's a different kind of reprehensible.

In the interest of letting Rivard dig his own grave, here's his statement as related by the Journal Sentinel:

Advertisement

[My father] also told me one thing, "If you do [have premarital sex], just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry." Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she's not going to say, "Oh, yeah, I was part of the program." All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she's underage. And he just said, "Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls," he said, "they rape so easy."

What the whole genesis of it was, it was advice to me, telling me, "If you're going to go down that road, you may have consensual sex that night and then the next morning it may be rape." So the way he said it was, "Just remember, Roger, some girls, they rape so easy. It may be rape the next morning."

Rivard's original remarks were made while discussing the case of a 17-year-old high school senior charged with sexual assault for having sex with an underage girl.

The Wisconsin lawmaker was endorsed by Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan shortly before he was selected as Mitt Romney's running mate.